Here at the Casey Met office we like to keep ourselves busy. We offer twice daily weather forecasts, flight briefings, the release of two weather balloons at 1115Z and 2315Z UTC, observations throughout the day and weather data updated every minute here on station, Casey Skiway and Wilkins Aerodrome. This year for the first time we deployed a temporary Automatic Weather Station (AWS) out to the Bunger Hills to assist our forecasting team with updated by the minute temperature, humidity, wind speed, wind direction and barometric pressure. A Telvent AWS is an automatic weather station that is tailored to predominantly avaiation forecasting, and was the first of its kind to be deployed on the continent!
How, you may ask?
This involved retro fitting one of our Telvent Automatic Weather Stations we would normally use on mainland Australia and adapted for use in the Antarctic climate. This meant modifying it into two large, insulated pelican cases to protect it from the harshness Bunger Hills may throw at it. Inside these two cases you will find one containing the weather station electronics and the other with 98kg of batteries. To top it off we installed a solar panel on each case to keep our batteries charged. This remained out in the field operating for roughly 2 months before its removal at the end of the season in early February.
After what was possibly the busiest aviation season ever here at Casey station, this lonesome weather station played a significant role in supporting weather forecasts and flight operations in and out of the Bunger Hills.
Congratulations to our Bureau of Meteorology's summer team on what was a successful season.
